Microsoft's Office Web Apps Now Called 'Office Online'

Microsoft has changed the name of its Office Web Apps to "Office Online" and revamped access to them through its Office.com portal.

Those browser-based apps now can be accessed easily from the front page of Office.com. At that site, users can access Office Online apps such as Excel Online, OneNote Online, PowerPoint Online and Word Online. Also available are the OneDrive cloud-based storage service (formerly called "SkyDrive"), the Outlook.com e-mail service, as well as People and Calendar apps.

Office Online apps are free to use by anyone with online access and a Web browser. Getting access just requires having an e-mail account, as well as a free "Microsoft account" signup.

Microsoft explained the reasons for the name change and the reorganization of Office.com in an announcement this week. Of the "one billion Office users" few of them had actually tried Office Web Apps. Moreover, users couldn't easily find out how to access them, other than through SkyDrive, the company indicated.

Office Online apps run in a browser and have the same look and feel as classic Microsoft Office desktop apps, although the features of Office Online apps are far more limited. Microsoft is touting the interoperability of the two products, with users being able to use the full Microsoft Office features offline and then collaborate with others online using Office Online apps. That collaboration capability is powered by a so-called "real-time coauthoring" feature that Microsoft added to Excel, PowerPoint and Word Office Web Apps late last year.

While Microsoft's name change and reorganization of Office Online might not seem like a big deal, it's apparently been contemplated by Microsoft for the past seven years. At least that's the reckoning of veteran Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley.

Office Web Apps had started out as a browser-based extension to Microsoft Office called Office Live Workspace. In 2012, Microsoft killed off its "Windows Live" branding, mostly because the Live products originally weren't designed to be cloud enabled, which might have been confusing given the Live name.